Saturday, April 07, 2007

New Beginning 253

The problem with the women of the Bright Moon coven was they insisted on doing outdoor rituals without shoes on. Prudence knew it could be worse. The thought of going skyclad—naked—filled her with horror.

But now the circle had ended, and Prudence, unable to find her sandals, was picking her way through the woods to find fuel for the bonfire while pebbles and sticks scraped and poked her feet.

Good thing it was Beltaine, and almost summer. She couldn't imagine doing this at Samhain in the October chill. They better have the fire ready before the ritual then. If she was still in the coven.

Ignoring the large logs she couldn't easily carry, Pru filled her arms with smaller sticks. One load down. She'd head back, drop these off and—

"Where is it?"

Pru gasped and spun around, dropping the sticks. One of them landed squarely on her poor bare foot.

"Oh, dear, Prudence!" Pru's best friend, Michelle, exclaimed. "I didn't mean to--""Let it be. Something in the way you moved startled me. It's just been a hard day's night and I've been working--""Yes, I know, Pru. We all have. But we can work it out. It's for the goddess. Remember, She loves you.""Yeah?""Yeah.""Yeah, but she's across the universe."

"No, she just came in. Yesterday.""Why didn't I see her?""Because. She came in through the bathroom window."Pru looked at her swelling foot. I should have known better, she thought, and she wondered if she'd be able to carry that weight down the long and winding road back home. "It's too rocky in the woods," she said. "I don't think I can do it."

For some reason, I kept expecting someone to pop in and tell Annie to take a load off.

I now this sounds even dumber than that, but I found myself wondering why she was bemoaning her lack of shoes when she was so nervous about being naked. I mean, would she have felt better about nudity if she could have worn her shoes?

Sorry, but the though distracted me and kinda took me out of the rest of the opening.

I am so stoked that I have a nickname from McKoala. Thanks for the nod, 'oala. :)

As for the actual opening from December, I like it overall. I'd want to tweak the festival / seasons line, as it sounds a bit like giving info to the reader. Also, I remained confused about the relationship between the ceremony and the wood gathering timing-wise, as 'oala mentioned.

But I would never be confused again if I simply enrolled in a degree program from the University of Phoenix, get the degree you want when you want it. Well, back to work for me. Fortunately, I can look forward to a pick me up from my Snickers bar, Snickers satisfies, and my refreshing Aquafina bottled water, stay healthy, stay smart. (Sorry, EE, carry over in-joke from December's blog.)

"almost summer?" she shrieked, looking at the thermometer and the drift of snow on her tulips.

While the writing is nice, as usual, it does read a bit like a Wiccan info dump. I have a problem with the wood-gathering business because the Need-Fire is essential and central to Beltane ritual, so the scene comes across as a artificial difficulty construct."Ignoring the large logs" - of course she would, automatically. No need to tell us.

My fault for leaving those sentences in the same paragraph (it's now fixed; when I copy into blogger everything is in the same paragraph, usually). Not that this answers the question Where is what, but presumably the reader knows this as the conversation begins, or learns it as the conversation continues.

Actually, the reason Pru is gathering wood after the ritual is because the Bright Moon Coven is run by fluffy-bunny idiots, who don't know what they're doing (which becomes very, very clear later). :-) So you're all correct in picking that up!

Oroginally I didn't mention what time of the year it was but I was told people might not know and I should add that in. I'm sure it will come out in edits.